Strikeforce exec says "Mayhem" Miller acted on his own, should have expected fallout

While “Strikeforce: Nashville” had a few interesting developments, including Jake Shields’ upset win over Dan Henderson and the historic matchup of champion vs. champion, Saturday night’s event will ultimately be remembered for one thing: the post-fight brawl.

The ugly, CBS-broadcast melee undoubtedly marred what had been a relatively ho-hum night up to that point.

But at the evening’s post-event press conference, Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker made one thing perfectly clear: the organization had nothing to do with Jason “Mayhem” Miller’s presence in the cage. In fact, Coker said Miller should have been able to see the brawl coming.

“There’s no room in Strikeforce for that type of behavior,” Coker said. “I will not condone and reward that type of behavior. If you’re a fighter fighting at the highest level, and you’re fighting on CBS, you’re fighting on Showtime, you’re fighting for Strikeforce – or any other mixed martial arts league – there’s no room for that type of behavior.

“This is not something that we’ll support or reward in the future.”

The entire incident began when Miller entered the cage during Shields’ post-fight speech with CBS broadcaster Gus Johnson. Shields hardly got one sentence out before Miller jumped on the mic and asked for a rematch of their 2009 meeting. Shields’ teammate, Gilbert Melendez, tried to pull Miller away, and the champion assisted with a shove.

From there, Shields’ teammates Nick and Nate Diaz also jumped in the fray, and the cage quickly resembled a barroom brawl – well, a barroom brawl broadcast on national television.

Much of the conversation in the mixed martial arts community following the incident has focused on assigning blame for the dust-up. While Coker was forced to speak about the incident before he had a chance to see it with his own eyes – the exec had already begun his transit to the evening’s post-fight press conference when the trouble began – he believes Miller should have been able to foresee the consequences of his cage entrance.

“I didn’t see it,” Coker said. “I don’t know how [Miller] got in there. But when you have the cornermen that Jake has, and something like that happens, you know there’s going to be an issue. I don’t know why he couldn’t have thought that out because I could have told you that prior to them (brawling) that we should have kept them apart.

“I had no idea that [Miller] was going to do that. … I can say this: no one from my staff brought him there.”

Coker said he would wait to receive video evidence of the skirmish before he decides if the promotion will take disciplinary action on the fighters involved. One of the combatants, Nate Diaz, fights for the UFC, so any disciplinary sanctions on him would need to be instituted by the Tennessee Athletic Commission, who will also likely review the incident.

But regardless of what, if any, disciplinary action is taken moving forward, Coker believes the incident was unfortunate and unnecessary.

“I’m going to look at the video and see what happened,” Coker said. “I don’t have enough information right now, but it’s not good for our sport. Our sport is in its infant stages. It’s a great sport. These guys are amazing athletes.

“It was an amazing night. I think it was a milestone with Gilbert’s fight with the DREAM champion and the Strikeforce champion. For something like that, to try and steal the limelight from a great fighter like Jake Shields, who really imposed his will and his style of fighting on Dan Henderson, I think it’s unnecessary.”

The Latest

The man known for cranking submissions to the point of injury added eye-gouging to his repertoire. But is the controversy of Rousimar Palhares too essential to his bizarre, awful appeal for his employers to take any meaningful action against him?

Ronda Rousey’s statistical greatness has already ventured into uncharted territory – just six fights into her UFC career. Check out all the post-fight facts, including Rousey’s latest achievements, about UFC 190.